DICE FM is a mobile platform that connects fans to live shows. You can search, browse and buy tickets for upcoming live shows, gigs, concerts, club nights and festivals, which have been curated for the user.

This team was hand picked for this job as we were all current users of dice and understood the culture and potential of the app.

Like the little piano solo at the beginning of a song we will take you through the journey from discovery to concepts and then development.

Brief

“Theres plenty of fish in the sea”, “you can do better” it’s been said by many of us when we look for other options. In UX we call it Comparative analysis. Firstly we carried out a task analysis of the main app competitors.

We discovered each app had a more streamline process than the current Dice flow. Another big difference we discovered was the information architecture categories within the sites above; Where Facebook was more “social” focused while 02 Priority was more “event” focused.

Insights

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We then also analysed ticketing & venue websites by carrying out a feature Inventory.

We discovered that the most implemented features were the;

  • Filtered searches
  • Recommendations
  • Artist/Venue Story
  • “Interested In”
  • Favourite & Follow

Why is this important?
It was important for us to impliment existing coventions to minimize user blockers but we also discovered there was space for innovation surrounding visual identity. Later in our user research we would find that when matching users to shows and venues, personality plays a big role in addition to preferences. From this bit of insight we later realized there was an opportunity to incorporate this ‘visual identity’ approach into the filtering search process.

Initial Screener Survey

Our target audience are people who go to local small venues to listen to emerging artists. So, to kick off our user research we sought to engage real people from our audience.

To do this we sent a Screener Survey to contacts who fit the bill and happily received 19 responses.
Our key Findings included:

  • When users go out in a group, one person usually books all the tickets.
  • People find small venues more intimate and feel closer to the Artist they are seeing


And lastly, much to my relief, it was confirmed that age ain’t nothing but a number. We had wrongly assumed that our target demographic would be firmly in their twenties but a majority of respondents were in fact in the 36+ category proving there is a wide potential age range for our target audience.

Interviews: Key Quotes

We conducted four user interviews to establish user habits and trends.We wanted to further discover what was important to users throughout the process of finding and booking events, what they liked and their frustrations.

Not only related to how they book tickets but to gain insights into the experience of going out locally with their friends.
We interviewed 4 people to establish user habits; Some key trends were….

These key quotes on the screen do a good job of summarising our insights, but we would like to introduce you to our mate Didi who can explain it a lot better than us.

Define

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“Oooo Ahhhh yehhhhh” these are the kind of sounds I wanna hear when I go out with my peeps – we’re really into the music. Noticing the the percussion, the bass that shivers down to my spine! I really get into the good stuff when Im in the mood.
When I go out though, it’s my time to shine! My hat, my creps and Im ready to roll.
Me and my mates try to hook up a coupla times a month, if one of them finds a good gig to go to, I’m down. Otherwise we just head down to our local. We know what the vibe is there but I do like finding hidden gems.
Sometimes spotify finds a few gems for me while I jam solo, but I’d love to see them live. Can I be bothered to investigate? Nah!! It’s too much of a mission. If only there was an easier way to find places to go with my friends with a fresh vibe.

Problem Statement

We get Didi needs to ‘be in the know’ about hidden gem venues and their upcoming shows so that he can discover talented artists that aren’t mainstream, while vibing with ‘his kind of people’.
But how might we play matchmaker?
By this we mean how can we match people with the right venue with the right music to create the perfect vibe?
This is where we start to get the creative juices flowing! Our team started the process by producing various sketches based on the research to this point.

Ideate

After we spilt our creative juices all over the crazy 8 sketch iterations, this was the chosen direction.
Yes it is a stickman! but let us explain
If everyone can close their eyes, Imagine you are in your place of comfort, listening to some tracks on your headphones.
Then Baaaaaam, you hear that track that transports you to a place where you are in your element. like when the food critic in ratatitouille tried a dish and was transported back in time to a place when he was a boy and his grandma served him his favourite dish.
We are vibing now, your heart beat matches the song, you become the artist and then suddenly you are on stage singing to 1000’s of people, where they are all chanting your name.
THIS IS THE EXACT moment we say “Take me there”!!!!!
AND this is the start of our solution.
A jukebox feature, which creates a playlist of emerging Artists which not only suits your vibe but are actually performing near you soon!!!
How do you create this, well next lets go through to the next stage of sketches

What factors matter when Didi is trying to create his vibe for a night out.
Does he want a crazy one, a hype one or a chilled one! What factors dictate this.
Maybe a dresscode? Didi cant get mullered in a tuxedo
Maybe the ambiance? Didi cant catch up with his mates if the noise levels are ear busting!
or maybe it could be the number of people you go out with? you cant go to a rough place without any backup
Now we’ve had a think about what matters to Didi, lets see how the New Dice Jukebox feature that can take Didi through to create his vibe.

User Flow

Didi fancies a solo jam so he opens up the Dice app, and see’s the new Jukebox feature on the home screen so he clicks.

The Jukebox then navigates him to set his vibe with settings which not only goes through the typical standard options like location and date but also incorporates options which we discovered from our research; This includes the Ambiance, Food/Drink, Dress code, Seating/Stand up & Group size.

Once Didi sets this up once, his tailored Jukebox is created! Once he hears a song that makes him want to sing live on stage he will have an option to “take me there” which will take him to the booking event card. Where he can either book or save and share with friends! Sorted

Next we will take you through the first iteration of our new Dice Jukebox feature

Prototype 1

User Testing

We conducted a test of our prototype and new ‘Jukebox’ feature with five different users.

We got 5 people to participate with our user testing which focused on two key user flows to the new Jukebox Feature. The first is the setting up the Jukebox to match your preferences and ‘vibes’. This is super important for Didi when deciding on which venue to attend, which is why we made it venue centric.

Users found;

  • Unclear they were in the jukebox feature
  • Categories difficult to define through representations
  • Would like to also set date range and specific location
  • Frustrations on click through

The second flow is the playlist made from your preferences that includes artist and venue information which then takes you to booking. Users found issues with;

  • Text sizing
  • Shuffle was confusing
  • More venue information needed
  • People typically do not book tickets immediately during discovery
  • Would like to see gallery in venue page
  • How to get there
  • Would like to be able to share event
  • Does not want to listen to music through the booking stage

We then carried out two further usability tests which were based on our second iteration, which led to further insights around text sizing, placement/hierarchy, as well as splitting up tasks per screen for easy readability.
Now we can have a look at our 2nd iteration

Final Prototype

In the second iteration of the design the most significant challenges were around structure and layout where research told us we needed to include more information whilst also clarifying the journey with better signposting and instructions.

First I’ll walk you through how you select your preferences and vibe… So now my vibe is set… When we get to the playlist you’ll see there is more emphasis on the giving the user all the information necessary to encourage transaction. 

We also worked up the player itself – a key experiential part of the design – the source of inspiration to motivate the user to go ahead and book. As you’ll see the player now also follows the user through the booking process…

Next Steps

So there we have it, we hope we have not only met Didi’s expectations but have exceeded yours! Our team has had a blast working on this project.

At the start we created a backlog with all the tasks and started a Kanban board. Our team did a great job self organising from there by utilising standup every day to discuss what had been done the day prior and delegate what needed to be done moving forward.

Thank you for your time, ears & eyes